


#000F89

by LoversAntiquities



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 08:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13760649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoversAntiquities/pseuds/LoversAntiquities
Summary: Along the side of the road, Castiel finds solace in his family.





	#000F89

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Supernatural anthology, SEASONS, which was fully backed on Indiegogo! The title is the hex code for the color phthalo blue.

Pain is insignificant, in the long run. Humans experience it in waves, from pinpricks to deep bodily aches that persist for days, weeks, or entire lifetimes. It roots and grounds, cements the bearer into the reality that they’re alive and bleeding, that for some reason, they’re on this Earth to do better in someone’s life, to offer helping hands that heal. Here, though, it’s the exact opposite. Castiel resists the urge to rip into his own flesh in the backseat of the Impala, blood seeping through the tear in his slacks, the laceration thick, struggling to knit itself back together.

Sam doesn’t offer much help either, too busy ripping open Castiel’s pant leg to offer any condolences. “Might as well do this now,” he grunts, needle and thread between his teeth. He splashes whiskey haphazardly onto the wound, leaving Castiel hissing through his teeth in the aftermath. “Doesn’t look like you’re gonna heal any time soon.”

 “No,” Castiel concedes. His thigh mocks him, thankfully the sight muted by the dark, starry night.

Outside of the passenger door, snow blankets the barren fields, white pillows occasionally marred by Dean pacing through them, hands in his hair and boots muddied from the plowed earth beneath. It’s not Dean’s fault that they’re here—it’s not Dean’s fault either that the cougar got Castiel.

What looked to be werewolf attacks—missing heart, maimed to death, among other things—were the result of a cougar stalking the Montana hills, taking out several residents of Portage over the span of a month. For once, the locals were right, something Dean deeply regrets not considering. Thankfully, by some force of will, Castiel managed to survive and toss the cat off of him, only to have it flee, bloodied and battered by the fall. “The city’ll take care of it,” Sam stated as he and Dean dragged Castiel to the car. “We’ll be safer out of their way.”

That was thirty minutes ago, when the Impala worked and Sam wasn’t resorting to all too human methods of getting Castiel to heal faster, or at all. “You sure it doesn’t hurt?” Sam asks, wary, and looks up to Castiel. Something about this, watching Sam on his knees in the snow, listening to Dean pop the hood, steam pouring from the engine, feels too real, too rooted into the ground Castiel treads, the frigid air he breathes, warm blood beneath his skin.

It hadn’t hit Castiel until now, how it feels to be human, the entangled emotions and constant aches, the utter desire to close the passenger door and huddle into himself for comfort.

Here, though, he settles for watching Sam pull needle and thread through his skin, Dean tinkering under the hood and cursing under his breath. “I didn’t notice it before,” Castiel says, absent. Sam lifts his head in recognition, but keeps busy. “We’ve been here for days, and I never paid attention to the snow.”

Sam stops for a brief second, looking over his shoulder at the white ocean and the forest beyond it, the blackness of the sky and the thousands upon thousands of stars, pinpoints in the dark. “Sorry you had to see it like this,” he says, forlorn, returning to the task.

Whatever Castiel could say, it won’t be enough. Neither affirmations nor apologies will do—Both Sam and Dean are traumatized, knowing there was nothing they could’ve done in the first place, save for a miracle. If Castiel were human, he would’ve died, a bloodstain in the field and barely a mark in the history of the universe, unrecognizable by those who didn’t know him.

 _Life is fleeting_ , Castiel thinks, looking to the sky, a sliver of green streaking across the horizon and rising. _Learn from mistakes, listen to those who challenge you, and love whoever you can with all your heart_.

It takes him another minute of staring and listening to Dean rifle through the trunk for a toolbox before Castiel fully comprehends what he’s witnessing there, unnoticed to his company. Wisps of green and purple dance among the black, one upon three, four, several, dwindling and recycling like breaths of the wind, illuminations on a cold December evening. From Heaven, they always seemed insignificant, common disturbances in the magnetosphere that played no role in the functionality of the planet or the universe as a whole.

But here, bleeding, with a bruised spine and surrounded by the only two humans he’s ever trusted with his life, the auroras are beautiful, terrifyingly so. A rarity, striking only when the conditions are ripe, when particles align just at the precise angle to create such a performance, only visible to those willing to look to the stars and marvel.

Castiel has lived for longer than he would care to recollect, years upon centuries upon millennia stacked together. Too many events to tie together, too many experiences to sew into one timeline. Never once in all of the time he’s lived has Castiel cried, not until the wetness pooling in the corner of his eye spills into his hairline, invisible. Not sadness—never sadness—but wonder, amazement at bearing witness to a phenomena he could only imagine. Seeing it with human eyes, cold and hungry and exhausted and pained, only marvels him more, until he covers his eyes with one hand, the other fisted atop his unmarred thigh.

“Cas?” he hears Dean say, trunk lid closing and boots squishing in the snow. “You okay?”

They’re staring at him. If Castiel bothered to open his eyes, both Sam and Dean would be watching him, concerned if not terrified. This is something they could never understand, wouldn’t even begin to fathom. For more years than Castiel can count, he existed as a being of light and fires, eyes and storms and rain, only to suddenly fall through the Spheres and be contained into flesh and bone; yet, despite the glory of Heaven, it doesn’t compare to the this. It never did, the auroras a sight he can’t explain to his family, those in Heaven or on Earth.

“I’m fine,” Castiel manages, wiping his eyes dry. By the time he looks to the sky, it’s dark once again, the stars twinkling down on him, observant, endless.

This—this moment in time, this peace, the cold, the pain, the lights—he’ll keep for himself, hold it close for as long as he can.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://tragidean.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/loversantiquity).


End file.
